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Offering Lake Michigan views from its commanding position at the north end of Chicago’s Mag Mile, the 1929 Art Deco Palmolive Building is a quintessential Windy City skyscraper. The 37-story tower was once the headquarters of the Colgate-Palmolive corporation, the site of the first Playboy Club, and a home of Hollywood actor Vince Vaughn following its residential conversion in the early 2000s.
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The owners of a 5,500-square-foot unit within the famous building, however, found it lacking a certain Big Shoulders je ne sais quoi and tapped Phillip Liederbach of the Chicago-based firm Liederbach & Graham Architects and New York interior designer Steven Gambrel for an extensive makeover. The duo previously partnered on a lush, David Adler-inspired makeover of a Lincoln Park townhome featured in House Beautiful in 2014. It’s currently available for $8.5 million.
With the Palmolive project, Gambrel tells Elle Decor that the goal was to emphasize the home’s inherent “Chicago-ness: what it really means to be in Chicago. We were trying to cull from the past while establishing a unique vocabulary.” Bucking popular renovation trends, the project called for the home’s existing open floorplan to be partitioned with new walls.
The term “new walls” ends up being a gross understatement given the exotic mix of materials involved. The home’s library is wrapped in a striking shade of red leather while its Macassar ebony doors sport custom lozenge-shaped panels inlaid with antique mirror. The highlight of the property is arguably the dramatic master bathroom. Lined with a rare black-veined marble known as Calacatta Capri and featuring a terrazzo floor with inlaid brass, the space earned a spot on Elle Decor’s December cover.
For more photos of the Art Deco-influenced home, check out the magazine’s website or scoop up a hard copy of its latest issue.
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- Hour Tour: An Art Deco apartment in Chicago that’s all about personal style [Elle Decor]
- Previous Chicago interior design coverage [Curbed Chicago]
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